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Fracturing PSSHE isn't the way to fix it (Editorial)

Chambersburg Public Opinion

Updated:
03/11/2014 09:57:40 PM EDT

It will probably come as no surprise that the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education recently struggled to find nice things to say about plans to enable larger universities split from the system.

It should also come as little surprise that we've come to this point. After two years of static state funding following an 18 percent cut, the state system has been systematically hobbled to a distressing degree.

Enrollment has declined — more than 20 percent at some schools — and it faces a $61 million budget deficit, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which it seeks to offset with a 4 percent funding hike, an $18 million payment from the state, and a 3 percent tuition increase. Unfortunately, Gov. Tom Corbett has proposed a third funding freeze. According to the Inquirer, the state once covered 67 percent of the system's costs. But that has since fallen to 27 percent, or about $412 million, the same amount the system got in 1997-98.

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Seems to us that if there would be one government function upon which to lavish money, it would higher education. Instead, we're bleeding it dry.

The proposal from Sens. Andrew Dinniman (D-Chester) and Robert Tomlinson (R-Bucks) would allow universities with more than 7,000 students — which includes Shippensburg University — to break off the state system and become state-related schools similar to Pennsylvania State University or the University of Pittsburgh.

The measure is pretty clearly tailored for West Chester University, which has the largest share of the system's 112,300 students and for which Tomlinson — a West Chester alumnus — sits on its board of trustees. But it could potentially apply to nine of the 14 schools in the system. Should even a fraction of them break away, the result could have significant negative consequences for the schools that remain.

The main point of a collective in this context is to bring down costs across the system through economies of scale, shared services, common administrative efforts and the like. The other big benefit of having 14 schools spread throughout the state is that no one has to travel very far from home to obtain an affordable education. That's hugely important to a lot of families.

If we fracture the system, costs go up everywhere. The first thing the breakaway schools will do is look to expand services with no limits imposed by government on when and how they can raise tuition. For the schools that remain, the funding landscape becomes all the more bleak, and they start to clamor for more funding just to stay afloat while cutting the opportunities they offer.

In the end, fewer Pennsylvanians students might go to college in Pennsylvania. Some who do might face fewer opportunities at the far-flung schools they can afford. Some might not go at all.

That seems like a heavy price to pay just to serve one school's ambitions, or those who might think government shouldn't be educating people in the first place.

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